Madame Bey

Background

Hranoush Agaganian, known as Madame Bey, was born in Constantinople, Ottoman Empire, to an Armenian father and French mother. She studied at Constantinople College for Girls, now part of Robert College. Her family disapproved of her marriage to Sidki Bey, a Turkish Muslim diplomat who served in Washington and New York. When the Ottoman government ordered him to Berlin, he resigned, and the couple stayed in the United States.

In Washington, D.C., she was a cultured mezzo-soprano, mother, and diplomat’s wife, befriending President William McKinley and his wife; she stood nearby when McKinley was assassinated. After leaving diplomatic life, she and her husband ran a successful Oriental rug business, but she valued her boxing venture most. From 1923 to 1942, she operated a boxing camp in Chatham Township, New Jersey, where world champion boxers trained. Journalist Damon Runyon, visiting to see Max Schmeling, wrote that his concern was not with Schmeling but with Madame Bey, who ran the famous training camp.

She enforced strict rules: no alcohol, wake at six, breakfast at seven, supper at five, lights out at ten, no swearing, and no women. Despite her firmness, she formed maternal bonds with her boarders, calling them her boys. She spoke seven languages: English, Armenian, French, German, Greek, Italian, and Spanish. Her favorite fighters included Max Schmeling, Freddie Steele, Tommy Farr, Paul Berlenbach, Primo Carnera, Lou Ambers, and Gene Tunney, whom she called her “polished emerald.”

Her camp hosted hundreds of boxing figures, from champions to trainers, and her life is documented in the book Madame Bey's: Home to Boxing Legends. She also anonymously published Turkish Diplomatic Life in Washington, Under the Old Regime in 1910.